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Regardless of the rule, it was an unbelievably smart play by one of the smartest players in the game. I know Troy is caught out of position sometimes, but when the Steelers someone to step up and make a play #43 is usually somewhere to be found.

Regardless of the rule, it was an unbelievably smart play by one of the smartest players in the game. I know Troy is caught out of position sometimes, but when the Steelers someone to step up and make a play #43 is usually somewhere to be found.

There is no doubt it was a huge, heads up, play by Troy. You get a chance to put the game away with a late score then sure why not. He knew he wasn't going to be able to recover it so make a dive and try and punch it out so another teammate has a chance. Legal or not it was a heads up play that fortunately went our way.

Rule question (Troy batting the ball)

Hey guys. I wasn't quite sure where to post this, but feel free to move it if its in a wrong place.

On another (danish) football forum we were debating the incident with Troy batting the ball. They claimed, rightfully so, that there should have been a penalty. This I can only agree with, however I don't see how it would have changed the outcome of the game. The alternative is that Troy just lands on the ball, Big Ben takes a knee and game is over anyway. For all we know, Troy actually provided Patriots with another chance of scoring. This, however, got me thinking as to the actual rule.

Lets say that Troy deliberatly bats the ball and a Steelers player picks it up outside of the end-zone. The flag is thrown and its a 10y penalty. Who is in position of the ball then? I mean after the fumble its a free ball and the Steelers clearly gain possession of it, yet they get penalized for doing so. What happens? Does the Patriots get the ball back or does the Steelers get the ball 10y from the spot of the fault?

However much you think you know about football, rest assured that Skip Bayless knows more!

Well, first off, I don't think Troy would have recovered the ball. The reason he punched the ball out was because there was him, and then 2 Patriots players going to recover the ball. I think if he had the chance to recover, he definitely would. He figured it would be safer to get it into the endzone.

Second, if the penalty was called, I would imagine that the penalty would be enforced 10 yards from the original LOS, and the Patriots get the ball because nobody recovered it. Just a guess though.

It's all subjective, I still think don't think he would have come up with the football. If he felt like he could land on the ball he would have, but he would have had to battle with 2 Pats offensive linemen.

I've been thinking about that and came up with the conclussion that Troy simply tried to make a play instead of playing it safe. He had like 1 sec, at most, to go through all the different scenarios, and being the playmaker he is, he just gave someone a chance to do something. It would have made a whole lot more sense, in all scenarios, to try and recover it even though he was unsure whether or not he could do that.

However much you think you know about football, rest assured that Skip Bayless knows more!

I've been thinking about that and came up with the conclussion that Troy simply tried to make a play instead of playing it safe. He had like 1 sec, at most, to go through all the different scenarios, and being the playmaker he is, he just gave someone a chance to do something. It would have made a whole lot more sense, in all scenarios, to try and recover it even though he was unsure whether or not he could do that.

I thought the opposite. He played it safe instead of trying to make a play. There are a lot of rules that players aren't aware of in the NFL, or that they aren't thinking of when they're playing. I figure he thought that he could either try to recover it and possibly lose, or knock it away from the Patriots players and give his guys a better chance to recover.

Like I said, it's really all subjective, which is why I dislike that rule. For all anyone knows, Troy could have been sliding in to just try to recover the ball and accidentally knocked it away (probably not the case in this scenario, as the ball went pretty far), but you never really know.